


Ocean Waves

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 22:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: An aspiring barrister, Hubert has little time for frivolity, let alone /dating./ He only agreed to come out to introduce Asbel to his friend Richard. He definitely didn't intend to drink as much as he did, nor to catch the eye of a certain lifeguard-slash-barman.





	Ocean Waves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DivineShark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineShark/gifts).



> dedicating this one to Lila, for talking to me about malihu modern AU a few months back and inspiring this fic. thank you Lila for always talking to me about Graces stuff and being a cool friend, I wouldn't have written this without you! <3

This wasn't exactly new ordinary behaviour for Hubert Oswell.

After all, you'd managed nearly two years of your degree without getting sucked into 'university life' – which mostly seemed to consist of getting drunk and losing complete control of your mental faculties, and then ordering pizza.

In your first year in halls, your room-mate drank an entire bottle of disaronno in a night and was brought home in a shopping trolley. Meanwhile, you'd studied for exams. Your brother had spent the Freshers Ball outside the post office heaving up a noxious concoction of yeager bomb and Dirty Dennis's chicken vindaloo. That night, you'd colour coded your lesson timetable. You'd turned down house parties, bar crawls, defecting from an evening at Oktoberfest in favour of sneakily catching up on _Sunscreen Rangers Go!_ on Netflix (even if it wasn't nearly as good as its predecessor, _Sunscreen Rangers: Sunscreen War_!)

And you _still_ don't know where that traffic cone in your shared flat came from.

You came to university to study, not faff around. And, frankly, the idea of getting _completely wankered_ was absolutely and utterly unappealing.

This resolve held out fast till the final term of your second year, as you were preparing your dissertation proposal. Offhand, you'd mentioned to Asbel that Richard-- who you knew from Games Club-- had invited you out for a drink with his friends.

“Wait. Hold up. _Which_ Richard?” Asbel had said.

“That third year, studies politics? I don't know if you guys have met before. He's friends with Pascal.”

Asbel had, quite quickly, sucked in his breath. “Long blond hair? A kind of, uh... regal demeanour?”

“That's him. He asked if I wanted to to to the student union for a spell. But I probably ought to finish outlining my proposal.”

Your brother, who was in all accounts incredibly mild mannered and laid back-- and still hadn't, at 2pm, changed out of his dressing gown-- _sprang_ from his seat. He gripped you by both of your shoulders.

“Hubert, you have to go. We have to go. You have to introduce me.”

Asbel's eyes were fevered; his face flushed. It all clicked into place.

“Wait. Are you telling me Richard is the guy you've been mooning over? The one from the beach party you've been going on about?”

Asbel's face coloured further, but he didn't back down. “Maybe. Sort of. Alright! Yes. You've got to introduce us. He's your mate, right? Just come out for one drink and tell him you brought your brother. Please, Hubert!”

Asbel had been pining over his _mystery man f_ or weeks. It was unlike him to get so swept up in a crush-- in all honestly, it was unlike him to get swept up in _anything_. He'd changed his bachelor degree three times. He turned in assignments hastily stapled together, moments before they were due. You once found him marathoning all eight _Harry Potter_ movies-- a feat that left an impressive indent on the sofa from where his butt had been. Naturally, he'd left looking for a house to the nth moment, whereupon you'd taken pity on your poor addled older brother, and agreed to houseshare.

The drive and enthusiasm he'd had as a boy had spluttered out. There was no point whingeing about it, but your childhoods hadn't been a walk in the park. Your parents' ugly divorce had left a lot of nerves raw. For a long time, you and Asbel hadn't even been on speaking terms. It was rare, now, to see such drive in his eyes.

Maybe, in the end, that was why you agreed.

“Just one drink,” you told him, with a put-upon sigh.

 

It was only supposed to have been one drink.

You'd shot Richard a quick text to see if Asbel could tag along. _The more the merrier_ , had been your friend's reply. _Is your brother into the Sunscreen Rangers too?_

_I don't think he could even tell the Flotillian apart,_ you'd replied. Alas.

The shirt Asbel chose didn't even have any curry stains; it was obvious he'd gone to a lot of effort.

No sooner than you introduce his brother to Richard do you question your decision to introduce the two men. An introductory hand shake stretches on so long it could be reclassified as _hand holding._ It's only reprieved by Richard's friend Pascal, whose eyes dart between the two as though she's watching a tennis match: “Yo, earth to Richard and Asbel, are you there?”

Your brother drops Richard's hand like a hot plate, flushed and stammering, but his eyes are dazed. Asbel is no longer on this planet, and clearly, there is life on mars.

A gravitational force draws the two men together like a magnet. They sit close, speaking quickly and avidly, which leaves you with Dave, who you think you've met before, and Pascal, who you've met but wish you hadn't.

You drink the pint of lager quickly, so you don't have to think of things to say. Then Pascal buys another round, and it'd be impolite to say no.

You all leave the union, Richard and Asbel walking so close together their elbows bump, and head to the wetherspoons pub down the road, where shots sound like a good idea.

Spoiler: shots are not a good idea.

Somehow, you end up at a bar by the marina without ever remembering leaving the last. You appear to have lost both your brother and your friends, which would normally be cause for anxiety. As it is, you set yourself down at the bar and call for another drink.

The barman is broad shouldered, sandy haired and strikingly familiar. When he turns around, you can't stop the exclamation from parting your lips: “You!”

Several times the last fortnight you'd accompanied Asbel for a walk on the beach, supposedly for some sea air. Later, Asbel had admitted he'd hoped to run into the mysterious and handsome man from the party again. Several times, Hubert had caught the eye of an incredibly good looking lifeguard.

“You should say hi,” Asbel had said. You'd put your foot down on the notion.

“I don't have a window in my studies to _date_ , Asbel.”

“I don't think you have to colour in a bit of your revision timetable just to say _hi_ , Hubert.”

The brisk sea air had sent your hair flying all over the place. Pushing up your glasses, you told Asbel, “No,” and flapped away, your coat blowing inside out in the wind.

It was all true. You didn't have time-- the fact that the idea of speaking to the lifeguard with sandy hair, who'd cocked that smile at you, made your insides turn-- didn't factor in in the slightest.

“You look good with your clothes on, too.”

Your thoughts somehow end up leaving your mother with no filter in between.

The lifeguard-turned-barman raises an eyebrow, but surprisingly, that's the only reaction you get from him.

“Well, I can't say I've heard that one before. It's original, I'll give you,” he says.

You clap your hand over your mouth, before you make things any worse.

“Say,” says the barman, seeming to have graciously forgiven you for your gaff, “I've seen you on the beach. The young man you were with slipped and fell in the rock pool.”

“My brother,” you say. You can still feel the second hand mortification.

'Young man,' he'd said. Up close, you realise he's not as young as you'd thought. Not old either, but no student like yourselves. But the amused smile, lighting up honey coloured eyes, still makes something in your stomach flutter.

“I thought you were a lifeguard?” you blurt out.

“That's my day job,” he says, and then offering, “I'm Malik.”

“Hubert.” You offer a hand out of habit. His handshake is pleasingly firm.

“You're a student at the university?” Malik asks.

“Yes. Law.”

“I see. Hoping to be a barrister one day?”

“Yes. Maybe. Who the hell knows. My father runs a law firm-- insists I get into the family business.”

“Hm. And what do you want to do?” Malik asks.

“That doesn’t matter, does it?” You laugh loudly; Malik doesn’t laugh. It's the first time you've admitted it out loud. Your laughter falters, you make to close your hand hard around your drink-- only to remember you left it on the urinal in the wetherspoons.

“I'd like a Guinness,” you tell Malik, but the drink he sets down on the counter doesn’t _look_ like Guinness.

“That's because it's water. You're barely in your seat, Hubert.”

You protest, but it would most likely be more convincing if you didn't reach for the bar, miss, and nearly stumble from the stool.

“Here.” Malik props a straw and one of those martini umbrellas in your glass. “Enjoy. I'll be back to check on you in a bit.”

Malik moves down the bar to serve other patrons, and grumpily, you sip on your straw. You think to pull out your phone, a shoot a quick text to Asbel to ask where he is. It's surprisingly difficult-- perhaps you really are drunk after all.

The hour is getting late, the patrons in the bar thinning. The bar looks out to the ocean, dark as ink past the lights of the marina. You think about unlacing your shoes and kicking through the soft sand, the crash and roll of the waves in the dark.

“You could change courses, you know. Study something you enjoy.”

Malik has moved back down the bar. He speaks conversationally, wiping down the surfaces. Apart from a few stragglers, the bar is empty now.

“I can't,” you say, tongue wrapping thickly around the word.

“Why not?” Malik asks, simple and casual.

“Well-- because I've already paid my fees for the last two years. I've committed. It's too late to change.”

“Hm.” Malik sets down his cloth. He removes the obstacle of the bar between you and pulls up a stool, straddling it backwards. “Let me tell you something, Hubert. I dropped out of university when I was twenty to join the military-- and after my term of service was over, I took a job as a teacher.”

“And... you quit that to become a lifeguard... and a bartender?”

“That's my summer job,” says Malik with a crooked grin. “And the bar-tending is just helping out an old friend. Although I have been considering giving it up to become a surfing instructor. My point is that it's never too late.”

“It's not just that. My Dad-- my stepdad, really-- he wouldn’t approve.”

You'd wanted to prove yourself to Garett. Not just that-- to be so successful that you could _surpass_ him.

How vindictive. How childish.

“Approval's all well and good, but a man's got to go his own way, Hubert.”

You turn your martini umbrella in your drink. “Yeah...”

This is a very strange conversation to have with a man you just met. You don't know if it's the alcohol, or Malik's easy presence, but you feel uncommonly at ease.

Malik asks you if you're out alone with friends to which you reply, you _were_. Asbel hasn't replied to your text, and when you call, it rings without response.

“It's fine,” you tell him, totally blasé, “I'll get a taxi.”

You stand, and the world spins: you promptly fall over.

Luckily, you and Malik are the only ones left in the bar to see it. “Maybe... I'll just sit here,” you say.

“Ah... do you normally drink much, Hubert?”

You shake your head. “No. I'm not normally lie this.”

Like any of it.

When did it get so late, anyway?

Malik's look is one of concern. It does something funny to your chest.

“Sit tight for a bit. I need to close up, but I can give you a ride home after. Do you live in town?”

“I do, but-- that's really not necessary,” you protest.

“I beg to differ. Now eat these and text your brother. Tell him Malik Caesar from Malibu is taking you home.” He tosses a bag of cheese and onion crisps at you.

You grumble a bit, but you do it, watching as Malik wipes down the bar and closes up for a night. You can't seem to look away.

He shrugs on his coat. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Even at this time of year, nights by the ocean are chilly. But in your alcohol jacket, you hardly feel it.

“I'm parked just down the road,” Malik says. You walk past the marina and down across the beachfront in easy silence; you manage not to stumble to much.

Inky black waves roll. The sound is like distant thunder. Suddenly, the world coloured with a new opacity: things seem very simple, now.

“I don't want to study law,” you say.

“That's the spirit,” Malik replies.

As you inexpertly buckle the seatbelt in Malik's car, you lean forward to ask him: “Do you normally drive drunk students home after work?”

“Maybe I should give up the surfing school idea and become a taxi driver, huh?” he says.

You laugh; the rest of the trip passes in a blur. Malik tells you about the surfing school he'd like to open on the beach.

“What would you do in the winter?” you ask.

“Turn it into a beachfront bar, perhaps? There's never a bad time of year for cocktails.” There's a twist of humour to almost everything Malik says, and it makes it hard to tell when he's joking or not.

He pulls up outside the flat you share with Asbel. “You gonna be alright from here?”

“Of course,” you say, before you drop your keys.

He helps you in, and while you're wrestling with your shoelaces in your room, he calls out from the kitchen, “I'll leave your keys here on the counter.”

The flat is empty. The others must not be back yet.

You wander into the kitchen, shirt half-unbuttoned because they were too fiddly for clumsy fingers, to find Malik toying with your sunscreen ranger egg timer.

“This is cute.” The twist of a smile.

“It's limited edition,” you tell him, with a note of pride.

“Even better,” Malik says. Again, you can't tell if he's joking with you.

He pats his keys in his pockets. “I should be going, then--”

He doesn’t finish. Likewise, you don't even finish your thought. Before you know it, you've crossed the room, you've grabbed Malik by his shirt, and you're kissing him, hard.

He smells of a strong musky cologne. You've always thought cologne was tacky-- but on Malik, it's intoxicating.

It only lasts a few seconds, and then Malik steps back, parting them with a gentle hand on Hubert's chest. “That was a nice surprise. I should head home now, though.”

“You could stay,” Hubert says. It's brazen, utterly unlike you. You're never like this.

“I shouldn't, though.” The rejection sinks heavily in your chest, but as it starts to settle on your face, he explains, “You're drunk, Hubert. It wouldn't be fair.”

You don't care about fair, at this point. You think about Malik's strong muscular arms, his hands-- what he could do with those hands.

He gives you a friendly cuff on the shoulder. “Look after yourself, Hubert. Follow those dreams.”

He's gone, before you can even think to thank him. You wander to your bed to lay down for a moment, and promptly, you fall asleep.

 

It's past midday when you wake, and although you're still groggy, surprisingly, you feel OK. You shrug into your dressing gown and put the kettle on for a strong cup of tea. As the kettle hisses, you duck your head into the living room to see something surprising: Asbel and Richard passed out on the settee, Richard's head resting in your brother's lap. A half eaten pizza sits on the coffee table, plus a family sized bag of monster munch. Also, Asbel's now dressed as a cowboy, which will probably make for an interesting tale later.

As you wait for kettle to boil, you spy your keys set on the island counter. Poking out from underneath is a note scrawled on one of your old post-it notes: Malik's name and a phone number. You find yourself smiling.

You've a seminar this afternoon. You've never missed a class, but there's a first time for everything, right? Maybe you'll take a walk on the beach. It might be pleasant to take off your shoes, to feel the sand between your toes. 

 

 

 


End file.
